Comment by raverbashing
11 years ago
Really
Before 32bit, x86 was a complete crapfest
Segments, A20, chained IRQs, several controllers that are still seen as separate, a whole chain of legacy stuff that has to be dealt with
No wonder the ARM processor in your phone has a lower power consumption
ARM goes in the other direction from 'legacy': every device's boot initialisation is different.
and its a good thing. No one needs to add redundant silicon that is used for 0.0000000001% of device lifetime (<1 second between power on and loading kernel).
People think we need ACPI on aRM, Linaro is even working on it right now :/ Its like no one gets what a clusterfuck ACPI was on PC.
They target servers where the cost of redundant silicon is a lot less.
It's about time someone wrote "x86, the good parts"...
I believe it's titled The Intel 80386 Programmer's Reference Manual.
I don't think it's up to date. I'd consider AVX a good part, for instance.
Does Intel's fabrication plants count?
Regarding segments:
In 64 bit mode CS DS SS and ES are still there but forced to 0, but are still around and FS and GS can still be non-0.
In 32 bit mode they still exist and all 6 are functional afaik.
Thanks for the info, I know they existed in 32bit, but didn't know about them in 64-bit
I don't hate segments just because, but because of the whole 64k limitation in 16 bit
(And real mode, and programs fighting for 640k while the machine had 4Mb, etc)